Customer Reviews

New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America (The Atlantic World)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very good book for those with an interest in New Netherland in general and New Amsterdam in particular. Jaap Jacobs compares and contrasts the social, economic, governmental, religious, and cultural practices and institutions of New Netherland with those of the Netherlands and describes the role of the West India Company throughout the period of Dutch governance of the colony. The author's text is thoroughly documented with source information in footnotes on nearly every page. For what is clearly a definitive work on life in New Netherland, I found the text to be very clearly written, without tedium, and surprisingly readable. Readers having ancestors among the inhabitants of New Amsterdam may be pleasantly surprised to find accounts of the doings, occupations, or legal problems of some of those ancestors. I found several such accounts and am doubtful that this information would have come to me in any other way. This is a very expensive book, however, and I subtracted a star from my rating because of its cost for an individual purchaser. I would encourage libraries with meaningful history collections or particular interest in 17th-century colonies in North America to obtain Jacobs' book for use of their patrons.

This is a fantastic reference book for anyone interested in the Dutch Atlantic World, specifically New Netherland (obviously). I have not purchased it yet, but the bits that I have read at the library have been most useful.

Note: It is encyclopedic!